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Bill banning registration of extremist religious organizations sent to Duma("RAPSI," March 28, 2013)

The government has sent a bill to the State Duma banning the registration of religious organizations of extremists. According to the government's press service, the bill stipulates that registrars responsible for religious organizations have the right to refuse to register organizations whose founders or members are involved in extremist activities.

In early February, President Vladimir Putin called for "beefing up the measures" to ensure law and order.

"You must act firmly to prevent extremist organizations' activities and take swift action against any forms of extremism," he said at an expanded meeting of the Interior Ministry Board.

Putin stressed that "the political battle and public discussion must remain within the Constitution's limits.

"Xenophobia and ethnic and religious prejudice threaten our multiethnic people's unity and Russia's integrity as a state," he said, noting that combating extremism remains one of the Interior Ministry's top priorities.

Several religious organizations in Russia have been shut down recently by court decision for extremism.

In February 2013 a court in Tatarstan banned a Muslim community of "faizrakhmanists," named after its founder, Faizrakhman Satarov, for being extremist.

The sect required its members to live in isolation, and prohibited them from being treated in hospitals or sending children to school, according to the prosecutor's office.

The case was based on the results of an inspection, which revealed that some 20 children in the sect lived in conditions that did not meet the standards as specified by the consumer rights and welfare authority and the fire safety inspection service.

It also found that children were involved in the organization's activities, which contradicts Russian law and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Russian Supreme Court ruled in May 2009 that another organization Tablighi Jamaat is extremist and banned its operation in Russia.

Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamic missionary movement set up in 1927 and has branches across the world. It is based on a radical philosophy; it rejects the legitimacy of the state and is intolerant of all other faiths.